


Give and Take and Taken Away with No Warning

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9083713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: John met Alexander in April, just when spring kicked in and the snow started to melt, leaving the grass to grow back and for flowers to push up through the ground. The sun shone down on Alex’s dark hair as he introduced himself, bright smile and small frame, eyes too old for a man his age. He charmed John with his words and they fell together into this whirlwind of emotions that John is almost too afraid to call love.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashilrak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashilrak/gifts).



John met Alexander in April, just when spring kicked in and the snow started to melt, leaving the grass to grow back and for flowers to push up through the ground. The sun shone down on Alex’s dark hair as he introduced himself, bright smile and small frame, eyes too old for a man his age. He charmed John with his words and they fell together into this whirlwind of emotions that John is almost too afraid to call love.  
  
When spring left and burned into summer, it felt as if no time had passed just as much as it felt like years had gone by. Alexander did that to him, made John forget about the world around him, sometimes making the fact that they were in a war just slip away. John felt as though time did not exist unless he was with Alexander, that the only moments that mattered were the ones when Alex would press their lips together, slide his hands underneath his shirt and rest them against the skin of his stomach.  
  
John knew that it was too good to last, that someone as beautiful as Alex couldn’t be satisfied with someone like him, someone who couldn’t live up to his charisma and talent no matter how much Alex seemed to think he did.  
  
That’s when they met the marquis.  
  
The Marquis de Lafayette had dark hair and a delicate bow to his lips with high cheekbones, round eyes, and a regal jawline. To John, it was as though he had been crafted in the name of beauty rather than military roughness, born to be a king but not a soldier, to be in paintings instead of fighting wars.  
  
His accent was strong, curled and dipped around his words as he spoke, made them sound more interesting than they should have been. John saw what how that affected Alex, how his eyes glinted when he responded, an accent he never showed John peeking out of his words, different from Lafayette’s, rounder, thicker. The marquis’ breath hitched when he heard it, hung off of his every word, like so many had before him. John can’t help but feel as though something just happened without him, like he just lost something.  
  
They became a trio, the three of them, and for a while everything stayed as it should be. John was allowed to be selfish and keep Alexander to himself for as long as he could, but he was not blind. He knew that Alexander was falling for the marquis as John had fallen for Alexander, and John knew the marquis was falling back.  
  
The first time Lafayette mentioned his wife, John was relieved and petrified at the same time. He spoke of her in the most romantic terms, his eyes filled with desperate longing as he told John and Alex of his two daughters, one of which had yet to meet. It felt all too similar to John’s own reality, to his wife that he left in England, to his own daughter that he abandoned before she was born. Alexander didn’t know about them, and John intended to keep it that way.  
  
Lafayette’s wife, however, did not stop the marquis from going after his Alexander, nor did she stop Alexander from falling into it.  
  
John knew when Lafayette and Alexander finally gave in to their feelings before Alex said anything about it. He came back into their room with his shirt half untucked, silky hair pulled out of its ribbon with his lips bright red and kiss swollen. He didn’t try and hide it, just collapsed on his bed grinning, giggling as if drunk.  
  
“Have fun?” John asked, trying to keep the jealousy out of his voice.  
  
“Oh, you bet I did,” Alex responded, laughed until he couldn't breath as he thought about it. John clenched his fist tighter around his quill and went back to working on a letter to his father.  
  
He didn't get to be jealous of Alex and Lafayette, as Alex never belonged to him in the first place. Nothing was truly _yours_ in the war they were fighting, everything a system of give and take and taken with no warning. Their relationships were limited, most were doomed from the start no matter their importance to the people involved. Love meant nothing when it came to the revolution, the laws, or the will of God; it was uncaring and brutal and nobody walked away in the same condition they began in.  
  
Alexander and Lafayette continued their affair, and John didn’t say anything about it. Alex came back late, the dark bruises sucked into his skin showing in the moonlight, making John’s insides twist, but he kept his mouth shut.  
  
John went drinking at a pub one night, not being able to watch the sly looks his two friends gave each other, waiting for John to leave so that they could ravage each other. John hated it, only stayed because Alexander asked him to, looked at him with those eyes that John loved, smiled with all of his teeth showing and John resigned to it. He was just a man in love with someone he was losing, desperately trying to hold on but making no effort to reach out to keep him.  
  
John stumbled past their tent on his return, fingers brushing against the canvas of it gently. He went to go in but he knew better than that, even with his mind as fogged as it was. Practiced from the times he was inside of the tent praying that a drunken soldier didn’t burst in unexpectedly, he held his ear up to the thin fabric, nausea churning in the pit of his stomach when he heard the marquis’ ragged breathing, low but unmistakable.  
  
“Come _on_ , Lafayette” Alex whined, his voice making John jump.  
  
“I thought I heard someone,” Lafayette rasped.  
  
“They’re probably gone now.” John’s heart raced. He wanted to run, he wanted to keep listening.  
  
“Just making sure. You wouldn’t want someone to hear us, would you?” He teased, smirk evident in his voice from where John was still standing. What if someone saw him listening in and asked what he was doing? How would he even answer?  
  
“I wouldn’t care if _Washington_ heard me if it meant you would _move_ .”  
  
“Oh, Alexander,” he whispered, voice soft, the cocky tone fading to one of admiration. “You mustn’t let your heart rule over your head.”  
  
“My marquis, I can assure you it is not my heart that is ruling my emotions right now,” he laughed. “But if you wish to talk of those matters, I’m afraid I have made that mistake too many times now, it has become my second nature.”  
  
Lafayette chuckled, low and deep, rumbling like storm clouds rolling into blue skies. “Then I shall attempt to satisfy both your heart and mind, along with anything else you ask of me.”  
  
Alex made a noise, loud and alarming and John sprinted in one direction as fast as he could, tears running down his face as he collapsed into the outer field on the camp, concealed enough in the darkness so that nobody would find him.  
  
This was his fault. He didn’t try and keep Alex, and now he didn’t have him.  
  
John fell asleep in that field, woke up just before sunrise with a severe headache and walked back into their tent. He didn’t know how long he was asleep for, just that Lafayette was gone when he got back, left Alex still panting on his bed. His eyes were closed but he wasn’t asleep, hand loosely gripping at the blanket that barely managed to conceal his lower half, as if John hadn’t already had his fair share of encounters.  
  
Alex laughed when he caught John staring. John felt his face heat, head turning away so Alex couldn’t see him and did his best to crawl into bed.  
  
“Are you jealous, John?” Alex questioned him honestly. John lay so that he faced away from him, unable to look at how Alexander’s pretty eyes gleamed in the dark, how the pale light of dawn would capture his features so magnificently. That image was not John’s to indulge in anymore, and he had to remind himself that it was never his in the first place.  
  
“Never.”  
  
“You can tell me if you are, you know. I wouldn’t be upset.” John heard Alexander sit up, but still didn’t turn. He stood up and walked over to John, each step landing slow and heavy on the ground, and John remembered that he was naked doing this. The next time he spoke, he stood in the middle of their tent, but John still didn’t turn to look at him.  
  
“In fact, I don’t think the marquis would be either.” He stepped even closer until he was behind John, bent down so his mouth brushed against John’s ear, his hair falling in curtains onto his face and neck.  
  
He whispered, “I actually think he’d like to see you on your knees, take my place for once.” He kissed John’s ear softly, and like a phantom he was gone, silently climbed into his own bed and went to sleep before John could register what happened.  
  
Lafayette returned home to France for the first time in over a year, which John wasn’t that upset over, but he did tell Alexander he was devastated if only to have him feel better about it. He was secretly happy that it happened; it gave John more time to spend with Alex, to keep him if only until the marquis came back.  
  
John tried to fix their relationship, but Alex knew he had a wife now. More specifically, Alex _found out_ that John had a wife and child after hiding it from him for almost two years, a betrayal of trust that Alex didn’t take lightly in any sense. He screamed at John with tears in his eyes, until his voice became hoarse, and then he stormed out, leaving and not telling John where he was going. The way the marquis glared at him the next morning, though, gave him an idea of where Alex stayed the night prior.  
  
Alex didn’t let them be what they used to, instead he became frantic, rushed things, got rougher. There were bite marks and carelessness and even more arguments that always ended in them grasping at each other clothes and kissing one another until neither could breathe.  
  
It hurts, having the one person that John loved in his arms again but only after there’s damage done to them both, after they’ve wounded each other enough that they have to fix it somehow. John wished he didn’t have to fight to be with Alex, but at the same time he didn’t stop himself from saying the things he did. It didn’t stop the onslaught, the attack, the impact when one of them decided to say something they knew would hurt.  
  
Alex no longer saw any room for romance between them, and John went with it. He still loved Alexander, but Alexander didn’t feel the same way anymore, so John resigned to the loss and counted down the days until Lafayette came back, when Alex wouldn’t be stuck with him.  
  
John left Alexander two months before Lafayette is set to return, going home to South Carolina to fight in the name of his home state. Before he left Alex stopped him, grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and kissed him, soft like he hasn’t in so long. John forgot what this felt like, and remembering didn't make leaving any easier.  
  
“I love you,” he whispered, tears in his eyes as he stares down at the ground. John inhaled sharply. It’s been so long since he heard Alexander say that to him, he’d be willing to give up the entire revolution to hear it again.  
  
“Alex?” John asked, hands going to rest on his waist.  
  
“Just,” he sniffed, “don't die, okay?”  
  
John tilted Alexander’s head to face him, wiped the tears from his cheeks and kissed his forehead.  
  
“I won't,” John promised.  
  
“My heart is not restricted to one person, John. I never stopped loving you and I don't know what I’d do if you died.”  
  
John wanted to ask Alex why he let them become how they did, why they both let themselves become so toxic, unable to recognize if their love was mutual or not anymore. He wanted to tell him he loved him too, to forget South Carolina and the war and take Alexander away somewhere they could forget about the outside world in general, but he had a responsibility to fight for his country, and it's one he had to uphold.  
  
“I’m not going to die, Alexander,” is what he settled on saying before leaving, and if he had to wipe his eyes as he got further away, Alex would never find out.  
  
John did not like to believe that he depended on Alexander, but the longer he spent away from him the more he slipped. He fell into the violence, the bloodshed, the gory inner workings of battle and the strategy of the fight. He grew accustomed to the adrenaline rush that it gave him, became familiar with the way his heart raced and the taste of blood on the tip of his tongue.  
  
That John Laurens was not the one Alexander kissed goodbye that day, and he never would be again.  
  
After being held prisoner in Philadelphia for six months, John was exchanged and sent home to his Alexander, only to find out that he was engaged. His heart sunk, but he’d done this before, lost Alex to someone else before, faked smiles and happiness to show false support.  
  
The marquis, however, was having trouble. Alex would leave early in the night to write letters to Miss Schuyler, the smile on his face identical to the one he gave to marquis when they met him for the first time all those years ago. Lafayette followed Alexander with his eyes until he left, then stared down at the drink in his hand.  
  
“It gets easier after awhile, you know,” John told him, taking pity on the man.  
  
Lafayette was broken out of his thoughts. “Pardon?”  
  
“Acting like you’re happy for him. It gets easier.”  
  
“I am not acting,” he lied.  
  
“Come on, you think I don’t notice how you look at him when he talks about her? It’s looks like you’ve been shot.”  
  
“I _have_ been shot, I can assure you I look nothing like I did then.”  
  
“I’ve seen you shot, and I can confirm that you do.”  
  
Lafayette sighed, knowing that it was pointless to continue arguing. “He’s only known her for three weeks, I didn’t think that it would happen so soon. I knew Alexander wouldn’t be mine forever, that a mind like his is too brilliant to settle for this, but I thought I’d have more time.”  
  
“I was like you once,” John admitted. “I loved Alexander more than anything, wanted to keep him with me forever, hold him close and never let him go. Then you came along, and I still wanted that, but I had to learn to let him go, and now you do too.”  John didn’t tell him that he still wanted that with Alex sometimes, it wasn’t what he needed to hear, but the thought did cross his mind quite often, and it never hurt any less.  
  
“You know, this is a dangerous conversation to have, Laurens”  
  
“And if someone were to overhear, who would they tell? I’m sure there are things far more interesting in this camp than the two of us.”  
  
“I will try my best not to take offense to that.”  
  
John didn’t leave Lafayette until later that night, slightly drunk off smuggled alcohol. Alexander was asleep when he came in, but John’s rustling around as he tried to get changed woke him.  
  
“Have fun?” he asked, sleep muddled voice. John heard the smile he wore, what it implied.  
  
“Not in the way you think we did,” John sneered, unbuttoning his shirt.  
  
“Of course not, but I don’t imagine you would’ve stayed with our dear Lafayette that long if you didn’t wish to.”  
  
John shrugged. “It wasn’t terrible.”  
  
“You can’t lie to me, I know you’re fond of him. Maybe you two can keep each other company after I’m married,” Alex muttered, then rolled over and fell back to sleep.  
  
John didn’t show up at the wedding despite being invited, disappointed but not shocked to hear that Lafayette hadn’t either. Alexander didn’t mention their absence when he came back from his honeymoon, the apology that John prepared to give just in case then deemed useless, the fake sincerity he practiced gone to waste.  
  
Congress appointed John as a minister to France just as Alex quit his position on Washington’s staff and they both left at the same time. Lafayette whined about how lonely he’d be with them gone, scolded Alexander for being so stupid as to resign, and wished John luck in his home country. John almost didn’t want to leave, but he did, departed from Boston in February and landed in France in March.  
  
The three of them are not reunited again for a long time, not until Laurens comes home and Washington gives in and assigns Alex a command.  
  
Alex pulled John into Lafayette’s tent and kissed him for the first time in a long time when they all came back together, long and sweet and urgent. He never kissed John like this before, legs wrapped around John’s waist, hands locked at the back of his neck, breath coming out heavy through his nose. John didn’t know how to respond, kissed back best he could, holding Alex by the hips so that he wouldn’t fall.  
  
John got lost in the kiss, forgot that Lafayette was even there with them until Alex pulled away and grabbed him by his shirt with John still holding him up and crashed their lips together. It was the first time John ever saw them like this, watched as the marquis’ delicately formed hands rested gently on Alex’s waist, ignored the jolt he felt when Lafayette’s pinky grazed the back of his knuckles.  
  
They weren’t given time to catch up how they wanted to, the battle was too demanding, Lafayette sent away for other plans.  
  
The British surrender at Yorktown, but John does not consider the revolution over. He still has battles to fight, a war already won but they were still not victorious, not in his eyes.  
  
Alex tried to convince him to stay, that if he did they could start a nation together, leave a legacy behind so that they’re remembered. Despite wanting to, John didn’t see a place for him in Alexander’s future, so he turned down the offer and went back to South Carolina to fight a war that many considered already done with.  
  
Ten months later, as he watched bullets fly overhead and his world went dark, he imagined the life he could’ve been living if only he’d listened to Alexander.  
  
Why did he have to think of Alexander?

**Author's Note:**

> haha I know this does not live up to your AMAZING 25 days fics but I hoped you like it omg why is this so sad


End file.
